Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Many rumours appear to be circulating about what is and isn't happening with myself, my staff, and Everybody Edits in general. Let's clear a few of those issues up, shall we?

Is there going to be a new owner of EE?

There are currently no plans for there to be a new owner of Everybody Edits. I want to see it succeed, and I've loved being the owner throughout 2018. I am very passionate about the game, and its community, and seeing them grow as time goes on to provide a more fun experience for all in general.

Are you just in this for the money?

No. I purposely fought for the position I'm now in to work towards saving Everybody Edits, and attempting to rescue it from seemingly inevitable oblivion. I was a community member for 6 and a half years before becoming official staff, and Everybody Edits means a lot to me. It's not a money-grabbing machine in my eyes. Sure, I want it to succeed, and I'd like to make enough from it for me to be able to work on EE full time with a reasonable wage, but I really don't think that's unreasonable to aim for. I'm not looking for fortunes, and I'm willing to spread the wealth. I've got solid plans for the budgets, and how they're spent, and they've been holding up well so far. No matter how people view it, money is required not only to live, but to "do things", including things directly related to keeping Everybody Edits alive.

Are you running away from your problems?

I've been planning this holiday for a solid two months or so, in the knowledge that I needed it for my own mental and physical fitness and well-being. I made sure with the Legendary+ Alpha Patrons before going ahead and booking the holiday, and now that holiday is happening. There is no direct correlation to recent events that I'm going on holiday, but it just happens to be a coincidence that I seem to have planned and booked it at the time it turns out I need it most.

Are there security concerns around EE?

Sadly, yes, and we're doing what we can to solve them, but there's only so much we can do without the co-operation of Player.IO, who generally are not very quick with handling any matters, no matter the nature. We will be moving away from Player.IO for EE Universe.

That said, we would like to assure you that your account information is fine. Your emails and passwords are still completely secure, and there is no way for anyone to know or find out what your password is, provided you're using a strong password, most likely above 8 characters in length, and with a mixture of letters, numbers, and symbols.

On the other hand, it's a shame to have to accept that your account itself, and the content on it, such as worlds and their content in particular, may not be safe. Even though we're doing all we can to make sure the security threats do not affect worlds and their data, if someone knows what they're doing enough, they are able to delete worlds and accounts. In the case of worlds, it's usually relatively impossible to recover the data ever (unless an earlier backup was made, but even then, isn't usually the full work), but in the case of accounts, we can do our best to put them back as they were, but this would take time. If anyone does feel the need to hack the servers of Everybody Edits to the extent of deleting such information, all this does is slow down progress on everything, whether it's work on EE or work on EEU.

Was your account deleted?

Yes. As part of the above security breach, my entire account of "Xenonetix" was deleted. We have done what we can to recover most of the account back to a state it was once in, but this has taken many hours out of the staff team's time to handle, which was definitely time we'd all have rather been spending working on EE Universe.

Why did you fire Gosha?

There were many reasons, but the reason it happened on the day it happened in the manner it happened in is because Gosha deleted the entire history of Error Logs from Everybody Edits just after an update had been made, and then proceed to claim I was ignorant and stupid for complaining at him for doing so, and claiming my management style is "retarded". Over the past year, I have gradually lost respect for and trust in Gosha, and I was trying to be optimistic that things would change, to the extent that I have given him two chances to redeem himself, and even the most recent chance was looking up for awhile. It became clear that, no matter how we tried to progress in our relationship, it would be impossible for Gosha and I to work together under the circumstances.

I welcome constructive criticism, but with Gosha, it was regularly a parade of negative criticism, stating that I am wrong, and he is right. I want to try to understand people, their motives, and their reasons behind making certain actions, but no matter how hard I tried with Gosha, I was never going to get that understanding out of him. He sees me as too stupid to comprehend whatever he might say about programming, and so just demands that I trust him and he must be right and knows better. This wasn't a relationship that could be repaired, no matter how hard either of us might try, and so it was necessary to cut ties in order to make any meaningful progress on Everybody Edits Universe.

Further reasons are listed in the Spoiler, and I stated all of these reasons to Gosha on 7th November 2018:

▼The List

- Leaving with no warning or debrief to other developers, meaning they couldn't work on the Lobby Overhaul while Gosha was gone for 6 weeks, followed by leaving for a further 3-4 weeks and still not giving any information.

- Nonchalant attitude to updates, lacking enough testing for many updates, and then leaving other people to fix his mistakes.

- Gosha's time rapidly decreasing to work on the game as time goes on.

- Confidently making claims about what will and won't happen on the forums without knowing for certain the plans.

- Not considering the implications on the community as a whole in regards to information and replies given.

- Regularly forgetting what you've done in the past as a developer.

- Revealing confidential information because you can "no longer keep it a secret".

Total amount paid to Gosha: 5,000 Rubles

Why did you fire Phinarose?

I fired Phinarose for similar reasons to those of why I fired Gosha, except that with Phina, it was usually a matter of stating what I "should have done" all the time, instead of what I "should do", even when asking her for her genuine professional opinion. If I were to ask a question along the lines of "What do you recommend we do at this point?", I would never get a recommendation, but instead a response along the lines of "If you hadn't done certain actions, we wouldn't be at this point." This is an entirely unproductive attitude, negative, and gets us nowhere. There are multiple times when I've sought Phina's advice, and I don't recall a single time when she ever made a recommendation over what should be done in future. It was always about the past, and it was always negative.

This then came to a head when the same exact situation happened in a public community setting. I asked for her genuine professional opinion, and got a very unprofessional confrontational response in return. It was this action that led me to believe that Phinarose would never change her ways, and would no longer be an asset to the team moving forward.

I would like to say at this point that I definitely trusted Phina a lot more than I trusted Gosha. She was a Team Leader after all. But I do feel that the Team Leader role may have been too much for her to handle, as there were many time she complained I wasn't doing my job, even though I was, and demanding I show her progress on various things, while at the same time, she'd been given her own task to do 3 months prior, and didn't even start it all the way up until the point she was fired. If she had started it, she never showed me the progress of it, and thus, a complete double-standard was set, where she was demanding progress evidence from me when she couldn't provide such evidence herself.

Phinarose was an exceptional moderator. She did, by far, the most reports of anyone, and did an amazing job at them. Sadly, it was the fact she couldn't deliver in a Team-Leader capacity that led to her downfall, and to be fair, she was somewhat thrust into the position after the events of 2017, so it was never really a position she asked for. She admitted herself early on that whenever she meets people, they generally end up seeing her as a "leader" of the group, even when she doesn't really want that role.

I apologise for any animosity between us, but I had just tried so many times to get us on the same page, to no avail.

Total amount paid to Phinarose: $200

Why did you fire (and then rehire) LukeM?

Regardless of the speculation surrounding these incidents, I fired LukeM for very different reasons to Gosha and Phinarose. With LukeM, it was purely a matter of regular miscommunication. Even though we were attempting to work through that and figure it out between us, Luke appeared to be treating me in a very similar manner to Gosha on the day. Even though Luke did disagree with some of Gosha's actions, he did start making many statements which came across as "I'm better than you - You shouldn't be in charge." Again, this wasn't very constructive, and considering my mental state at the time having just fired two employees in a single day, being told what I "need" to do really escalated matters a lot further.

For many weeks now, Luke and I have been clashing and debating over the nature of how to handle certain aspects of Everybody Edits Universe. As a person who thrives on understanding people, it was immensely frustrating to me when, no matter how much I tried to explain what I meant, Luke wasn't seeming to understand what I meant.

There's an important distinction here - Gosha and Phina may have "disagreed" with how I was doing things, but Luke simply wasn't understanding why I was doing some things the way I was doing things. I feel his pain, as someone desperately wanting to understand other people myself. As such, it makes it all the harder and more frustrating when I think I'm explaining something in a way that would help me understand, only for him to seemingly understand less. All this resulted in was repetitive circular loops of analogies and wasting time, and we weren't getting very far as a result, to the extent that other members of staff were claiming that having to catch up with all the chat between us in a day had prevented them from doing work at all. This is something I do completely understand, as a writer and consumer of walls of text such as this one. Reading feedback can take a lot of time out of one's day, and when thousands of lines of discussion just lead us back to where we were 6 days prior, it really isn't helping anyone at all.

As Luke mentioned, something needed to change. It was vital we find and work out other ways to handle our communication with each other better, and work with each other to push forward in making games we're both proud of. He, Josh and I talked it out completely rationally, and we accepted him back to staff. I meant no ill will towards Luke, and I apologise that he did seemingly get caught in the cross-fire of Gosha's firing. Even though I regret my action and choice to fire him, it did at least open up a new approach to the communication we so desperately needed to break out the feedback loop we had previously gotten into.

Luke is a fantastic programmer, and genuinely wants what's best for the community and the game. It's been a pleasure to work with him, and I hope will continue to be a pleasure for plenty of time to come. That being said, I really hope we never have to get into an analogy explaining an analogy of another analogy again.

Total amount paid to LukeM so far: £130

Has this affected progress on Everybody Edits Universe?

Undoubtedly, yes. There are many reasons which have culminated in us not being able to provide a Closed Beta by January 2019, but I did truly believe it was an attainable goal at the time I made the prediction. Having spoken with my Development Team, I have now revised the predictions accordingly, and I'm sorry if this let's people down, but Luke in particular is very keen to make sure it isn't rushed, and I do agree with him. As such, it's now looking more likely we will have started the Closed Alpha by the end of January, be setting up the Closed Beta servers and building upon the structure in February and March, leading to a Closed Beta launch more likely to happen around March-April.

We're human - We all make mistakes, and I apologise for mistakes I have made in particular, but the Staff Team really is passionate about EE and EEU, and we are going to deliver a product which we hope can live on for many years to come. It's completely understandable if the community has lost some trust in us at this point in time, but at the same time, I am not going the direction of previous Staff Teams. I will fight to keep my position as Owner of Everybody Edits, and work to make the community as a whole proud.

With that in mind, I had a dream a few days ago - Someone offered me $294,990 to purchase EE - I accepted.

Good night everybody - I hope you have a wonderful time in EE, and I'm going on holiday.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Not too surprised about the deadline being moved honestly, it’s like watching Xen development in Black mesa, you just know it’s unlikely to happen at initial estimation. Regarding Gosha i always believed him to act a bit above the law in a way, what with him hacking his way around the game like a bored demi-god. Anyway good to see EE is still going to be kicking, need more drama.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Hey xeno thanks for making this topic. You really should have done this earlier rather than postponing it, but better late than never.

While I still don't think you should have done what you did, but now I at least understand the situation better when it's been presented in full, instead of being separated by numerous in-game and discord messages where people can talk over you.

This is a much welcomed improvement from yesterday.

How long will it take me to get banned again?Place your bets right here.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Wow. If I had told my boss things like 'shouldn't have done that' and accusing them of slacking off while demanding progress reports of their work, I would have been reminded of my place while given a warning. And if I dared to do it again, that would have been an instant pink slip.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

5000 rubles is about $75, £130 = $165, $200 to phina. Where is the rest of the $1945 for staff given and why is there such an imbalance there?

At least with me, thats because I don't really have much time to work on EE during university term time, so understandably I wasn't being paid during those periods (and Gosha has been away a lot more than I have)

And we did have 12 staff working for the EE team before all this happened, so it does add up pretty well.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

As much as I appreciate Gosha's role as a developer, I can understand from an owner's perspective why he was let go, even if I believe it should have been done in a better way. As far as I see with Phina though, it looks more like a discussion of her role should have taken place first, especially if one reason she was fired because her role didn't match with team leader and fit better somewhere else.

With the whole arguments and criticisms and stuff along those lines, the best way to solve them is to allow an environment where there is only constructive criticism and a lot more transparency. Let people understand your decisions and remind them how you made them and how tough they were to make. Being in the position of owner is a damn hard thing to maintain, and you accept the role of always being the big bad man no matter what decisions you make.

Personally, I feel you should still contact Phina and Gosha after your vacation, and, even if you don't rehire them, apologize and thank them for what they did in private beside the negative feelings. Apologize, let them apologize, and a lot of bad blood can become bygone. I still feel you could potentially rehire Phina under a lesser role even, but that's a story for another day.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

it is outstanding how you can win this community back by ignoring the root of issue at hand, making some positive EE and EEU topics, playing the "we could use this time to work on EEU instead" card multiple timesyou fired phina for not giving you a professional opinion. wtf is that? its not even a part of her job. you fired your best moderator for something that doesn't even fall under moderator's direct responsibilitiesi also wouldnt be surprised if the amount of $$$s paid out to gosha was decided exclusively based on your subjective thoughts about him and not on the amount of work done

mutantdevle wrote:

5000 rubles is about $75, £130 = $165, $200 to phina. Where is the rest of the $1945 for staff given and why is there such an imbalance there?

bruh firing staff is hard and is worth much more money than writing some code or handling reports

theres still too much context missing and speaking of trust (one of your favorite topics, xeno), i cant trust any of the stuff written in this and other topics without any proof provided about the issues that arised amongst staffnow, wheres the downwoot button?

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Xeno just admit your mistakes and apologise for them already. Yeah you weren't completely in the wrong on everything but hey nobody's perfect and I bet most of us would have a lot more respect if you just owned up to your mistakes, apologised and then tried to be better in the future.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Jet you'd get a lot farther without saying things like "This cannot go unpunished" "I've had enough of you, you will burn and I will watch." I know you're frustrated but you're really just coming across as bitter and vindictive and it's really making your words less convincing. Way things are now it seems like you're just looking to add fuel to the fire. It's possible to have a reasoned discussion on 451 reasons why Xeno is the big suck.

"Sometimes failing a leap of faith is better than inching forward" - ShinsukeIto

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Different55 wrote:

Jet you'd get a lot farther without saying things like "This cannot go unpunished" "I've had enough of you, you will burn and I will watch." I know you're frustrated but you're really just coming across as bitter and vindictive and it's really making your words less convincing. Way things are now it seems like you're just looking to add fuel to the fire. It's possible to have a reasoned discussion on 451 reasons why Xeno is the big suck.

nice paraphrasing diff

people have already tried having discussions with him but he’s so arrogant nothing gets through to him except for **** like this at this point

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

I don't think anyone particularly cares nor blames you for having a holiday, but it is rather moronic to fire your entire team at the same exact time you wish to go on holiday.

You single-handedly induced the vast majority of the drama occurring now on yourself, and yet you blame everyone else aside from yourself.

Xenonetix wrote:

Why did you fire Gosha?

Xenonetix wrote:

He sees me as too stupid to comprehend whatever he might say about programming, and so just demands that I trust him and he must be right and knows better.

Wow.

How surprising that you'd frame the argument in which you fired him as though he was the only one against you.

As previously mentioned by multiple members of your team who were around during the event, and the evidence is available here if anyone wishes to read it.

You accused Gosha for uploading a game code that effectively made logins stop working, and you proceeded to threaten to fire him after he stated that it was Player.IO being down that caused the error, and after he sent you proof that Player.IO was down directly from the error log.

I can attest to the accuracy of the error. You were in the wrong and effectively threatened to fire them if they attempted to remediate the issue and if any error were to occur along the way. You thought you were correct, you incessantly refuse to admit you were wrong, and you have not apologized for acting the way you did, and you have not apologized for firing Gosha.

Xenonetix wrote:

With that in mind, I had a dream a few days ago - Someone offered me $294,990 to purchase EE - I accepted.

Xenonetix wrote:

Are you just in this for the money?

No. I purposely fought for the position I'm now in to work towards saving Everybody Edits

Ironic.

In addition, no, you didn't fight for your position. You were handed it by NVD who thought Phinarose was a worse option than yourself.

I stand with the vast majority of people here and say she's far better than yourself for being able to interact maturely and respectfully with her staff and community.

I think your actions have been reprehensible and I find the clear lack of context and apology incredibly predictable after having worked with you. You have blamed everyone aside from yourself, even going as far to blame Helvi when they had absolutely no role to play in recent events.

▼Hidden text

As more time goes on, more evidence will be presented displaying the context and the real treatment and communication Xeno has with his staff. It isn't pretty, from what I witnessed throughout the year from those who have confided in me and others.

I expect more responses from staff members to be made in this topic with their perspective, and so it'd be good if the topic were to be kept alive and discussion stay fresh with original and without off-topic posts.

Re: Security Concerns, & Reasons for Firing Staff in January 2019

Jet, I think what Diff is trying to say is that you aren't winning over anybody with that attitude. I fully understand everything you're saying and see many of your points, but that's partially because I had to learn how not to keep a **** mood is situations like this myself. The truth of the matter is right now that, if you want to get a point across, you have to convince people you're the bigger man of the situation. Instead of just letting people know everything wrong that is going on, address it in a calmer manner. You'll be taken a lot more seriously by also appealing pathologically and ethologically instead of just logologically and kairologically. You are putting forth logic at an opportune time, but the way you're doing it is only emotionally separating those you're trying to persuade.